The snubbee here in terms of Oscar buzz is Winter's Bone. But it's a tiny indie and maybe that's not what the PGA wanted to value? Still it's absence reminds us that the Best Picture race, is really down to those 11 films. Last year, there were only about 12 films standing before Oscar nominations were announced. Is it always going to be this simple to predict with the new widened Best Picture field. If so, sadness. Predicting should be tougher. But at least it's tough to say which of the 11 is getting the Oscar boot.

I'm currently assuming that it's either 127 Hours or The Town on the outs come January 25th but who knows? Maybe it'll be something that breaks my heart more like The Kids Are All Right or --GASP-- how will the internet go on living if it's Inception? When there is just one too many strong precursor candidates in any category (see also supporting actress) sometimes the person/film left out is not the one everyone thought was most vulnerable.

Despicable Me eh? I guess you have to give the producers credit for how good that looked and how successful it was despite a budget that was far lower than most of the animated films that were hits this year.

I'm proud of them for not restricting themselves to only Oscar finalists here. Though I still don't really get the enthusiasm for Client 9, Inside Job and Waiting For 'Superman'... as they seem to be such straightforward docs. I guess I'm drawn to more creative / surprising let's informational documentaries.

Yeah, Winter's Bone is probably getting in... I feel like The Town is vulnerable, since it's just so darn minor, relatively speaking.

127 feels like it has too much support across to many categories to miss in a 10-wide field.

What are the top 5, exactly, Nat? I think it's TSN and TKS in the top tier, then Inception and Black Swan in another tier, and then everything else is about equal in taking up the rear. The Fighter, I guess? Maybe True Grit now? But it might even be something like TKAAR in 5th... it's kind of sad that we'll never know (and no, I don't think whichever film gets a director nod is the 5th slot, since that could even be Danny Boyle there).

It's going to be a USA, A-OK year for animated film, isn't it? Just like 2005? I can take comfort in knowing that there are four solid American animated films to choose the three nominees from, even if it means a more experimental title is left out in the cold. Would Despicable Me or Tangled being the third nominee be any worse for the category than Shark Tale or Surf's Up being able to promote themselves as Academy Award nominated films?

To play devil's advocate, what if there was some kind of bizarre backlash against animated films because of Up being nominated for Best Picture last year? Could The Town and Winter's Bone both get in while Pixar sits on the sidelines, once again relegated to Animated Feature? How often do sequels get nominated for any big awards?

OtherRobert -- i've considered that myself but I think TOY STORY 3 is just too strong to be subject to that backlash. But unlike the rest of the internet I do suspect that backlash is coming sooner rather than later.

animated films do seem to get an easy pass with critics

(even the mediocre ones tend to get solid thumbs up), an easy pass with audiences (mostly they're big hits) and an easy pass towards awards glory (MUCH easier to get oscar glory when you're competing against 3 handfuls of pictures instead of hundreds like live-action films have to do)

at this point so i could understand if the hundreds of thousands of flesh and blood people working on live action films started resenting them.

About your statement of True Grit and Black Swan should be examples: Yes, they should. You spend about 200 million on a kind of garish and sloppily edited (one edit every second and a half) sand picture, yet you have a tautly edited and fairly cheap movie by your standards about the creation of facebook that got some BANK. And yet you keep churning out Yogi Bear level movies year, after year, after year. (Hint: Don't release movies every week if you're not going to be trying for quality product. Flooding the market place probably doesn't help in the long run.)

I really don't see THE TOWN making it... That ending really lowered my rating for the film: it's an action-based movie and there's nothing action-like about the last 5 minutes! When you're putting all your money on one card, why not go all the way till the very last shot?!

anon -- oh for sure. but small industries are notoriously cliqueish. i'm guessing there's not a TON of overlap between the people who are regularly employed making animated features with the people making live action films (which greatly outnumber them)

I'm not disparaging animated films. I love cartoons. I'm just saying i wouldn't be surprised at all if there's some resentment brewing.

Toy Story 3 will not get significant backlash. Too strong. It has Quentin Tarantino calling it the best of the year (he's academy, after all) and it's the best reviewed film of the year after Social Network.

I would've expected Winter's Bone over 127 Hours since one has been a nice little hit for its budget and has done so much better throughout the season than people expected, whereas the other is actually kind've a big disappointment (barely making $10mil).